By: Samantha Zimbler,
on 11/21/2015
On a blustery St. Martin’s Eve in 1619, a twenty-three year old French gentleman soldier in the service of Maximilian of Bavaria was billeted near Ulm, Germany. Having recently quit his military service under Maurice of Nassau, he was new to the Bavarian army and a stranger to the area.
The post The phosphene dreams of a young Christian soldier appeared first on OUPblog.
I have never done a Best Books list, mainly because although I absolutely love to read these types of lists, I generally have a hard time choosing ten favorites from a given year. I read so much, but for me to put a book on a BEST list, it had better be damn good. And some years, as much as I read, I don't read ten great books. Let's see if I make it to ten for 2011. My favorites, in no particular order:
Marie Lu's smart, fast-paced addition to the dystopia coterie begs for a sequel. Violent and bloody, Legend is an in-your-face commentary on how the chasm between the haves and the have-nots in our society continues to expand.
Not a YA novel, but I'm pretty sure The Magician King, the sequel to Grossman's The Magicians will show up on a lot of high school reading lists. It's Harry Potter for grown-ups, wizardry with humor and intellect. Completely unpredictable and totally original. I loved it.
Of the spate of dystopian novels from this post- Hunger Games YA literary landscape, Delirium stands out. Sure, it's set up for a sequel, but that won't interfere with your enjoyment of this story. Is a life without love a life at all? Delirium is a perfect read for those who grew up reading The Giver and now want a YA experience.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a creepy, weird, atmospheric book. I love the harsh and hearty Welsh island setting. The odd, quirky characters remind me of a kids' version of Twin Peaks. I think the use of the old photographs is a little gimicky, and sometimes, author Ransom Rigg seems more enamored of the photos than how they actually f
I just received an email from Overdrive, a huge ebook distributor, for an ebook webinar that they're holding. The text in the email says this:
"How do you engage students who spend more time reading from a screen—on their cell phones or computers—than they do from the printed page? With eBook and audiobook downloads.
OverDrive, the leading distributor of eBooks and more for libraries and schools, invites you to learn how to make reading cool with the devices students use every day."
Reading this made me squint pensively at the screen of my laptop. Are ebooks the only way we can "make reading cool"?
My husband and I were just commenting last night to one another about the fact that our kids, who are both teenagers, spend most of their day engaged with their phones. They do everything- literally everything- with their iPhones. They communicate with people, watch TV and movies, listen to music, surf the web, read, and more, all on their phones. Does that mean that doing these things in other ways, like reading from a printed book, is NOT cool?
When did we have to start pandering to kids to get them to read or to get them to start thinking that reading was cool? Is this the message we really want to send to kids? That we want them to engage with their screens even more?
Obviously, Overdrive has an agenda here. They want to sell ebooks, so they're making it sound like that's the way to go. I don't blame them for that. But, is it what we (teachers, librarians, parents) want? I am not at all convinced that ebooks make reading cool. Reading makes reading cool. It's just a cool thing to do. I think Overdrive is sending the wrong message, albeit one that is to their advantage, when they say that ebooks are what's going to make reading appealing. Shouldn't the stories be doing that? And do we want to lose our kids to their screens even more?
I'm not signing up for Overdrive's webinars.
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By: Kristi Holl,
on 5/25/2011
One of my health goals is to stop taking so much aspirin and other painkillers. It causes more problems than it helps. This has been an ongoing goal for years, and recently I found something amazingly simple that is really helping!
When I started writing, I don’t recall ever reading anything about health problems associated with writing. But sitting for hours, especially at a computer, takes a toll on your neck, back, wrists, and hands. The associated headaches and back pain keep many writers on painkillers of one sort or another.
Then my daughter suggested that I get some yoga DVDs. My initial reaction was negative. My mental image of yoga was of some spaced-out chanting person twisted into an inhuman pretzel. Not for me!
I quickly learned that my ideas were outdated. From my library, I checked out “Healing Yoga for Aches & Pains,” which was as soothing as a massage (and got rid of my headache!) I have yet to try “Yoga for Inflexible People.” My favorite DVD so far is Yoga: Sitting Fit Anytime, which has nine separate 3-5 minute segments addressing individual needs of people who sit at computers for hours.
It’s easy to follow, you do it sitting, and it targets neck and shoulder tension, lower back pain, upper back pain, tight hamstrings, headaches, and carpal tunnel problems. There was even a segment for stiff hands and fingers. There was no chanting. 
(FYI: I skip the New Agey intro–not for me! Just want the stretches.)
If you don’t have aches and pains from writing, thank heaven. But also consider doing some routine stretching to prevent developing such problems. If you already suffer from head, back and/or arm pain, consider yoga as a drug-free solution. Your body–AND creative mind–will thank you.
[P.S. If you long-time faithful readers thought this sounded like a repeat, you're right. Had a ripping headache today that I finally got rid of with the DVD stretches! Thought you all might need the same reminder I did.]
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This summer, my son and I are taking a trip to Oregon. He and I spent a ton of time online looking at hotel reviews and maps and room rates, and we finally narrowed it down to this one great looking hotel. We browsed the hotel's website for a while, and we ended up booking our stay on one of the travel aggregator sites. The next day, and for quite a while beyond that, I noticed that in my Google Reader feeds, the advertisements at the bottom of each entry were ALL FOR THAT HOTEL. In other words, the internet, or more specifically, Google, had been monitoring where I'd been browsing and had honed in on the place it thought I wanted. Google had personalized the ads just for me.
That idea is not a comfort to me.
Nor is it a comfort to Eli Pariser, who discusses this very issue in the following TED talk. Watch it and squirm:
A few weeks ago, Ben Mikaelsen came to our school as this year's visiting author. Ben was a delight, and I'll write more about his visit in another post, but for now, I want to concentrate on his philosophy about writing.
"Writing," he said, "is storytelling."
Of all of the things that I got out of Ben's visit, and there were many, this simple sentence resonated with me in a way that I never would have expected. It stuck in my brain and kept tap, tap, tapping through my thoughts. You see, in some fantasy world of mine, I consider myself a writer. I always have, from the time I was very young, around seven or eight years old. It's all I wanted to do. Well, that and read.
So, why did the utterance of this sentence have such an effect on me? I think I figured it out. See, the thing is, as much as I love to write, I am not much of a storyteller. What Mr. Mikaelsen was talking about was just letting go of the notion that every word needs to be weighty and special and telling the story you want to tell. That has always been so incredibly hard for me. When I write fiction, I gnaw my knuckles over every syllable and twist of phrase. I get so caught up in trying to make every word the perfect word, I end up writing in nothing but fits and starts. Sometimes I even give up, thinking that it'll just never be perfect so why bother.
Even now, as I write this post, I'm stewing about words. How does one overcome that? Because I think Ben is absolutely right. The story is much more important than the words themselves. If you can tell a great story, you can get around to fixing the words later. Maybe in one of the fifteen full revisions that Ben says he does to each of his books!
I have actually written a book, a YA novel called The Power of Merit Ruhl, which took me two years to write. I'm proud of it. I had a story I wanted to tell, and I told it. But I agonized over words the whole time. Now, I want to try to tell more stories. I want to write a sequel to my book, and even make it into a series. I have the stories to tell, the arc for each of the four major characters, in my head. The question is will I be able to set aside my obssession with words and just tell the stories?
My favorite books tell really amazing stories. Donna Tartt's The Secret History is a good example of this. If you've never read it, go out right now and get yourself a copy. It's the story of a small group of friends at a private college who do a terrible thing and then have to hide their mess. This story left me breathless. There is one point of such delicious suspense that I practically ripped the book because I was holding it so hard. Another example of spectacular storytelling: Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier, a book that, though I've read it many times and even taught it, can still keep me enraptured to the very last page. I don't necessarily remember all of the fancy phrasing and uses of foreshad
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The hideous attempt at a PicassoHead of myself is at left. In the past, my students have absolutely loved this kooky web tool, so when it was suggested to make an avatar using it, I thought I'd have fun. Well, sure, it's fun when you want to make something weird and wild, but making an avatar for oneself? More like humiliating. Just to clarify, I don't look like that.
But in creating this (Teacher Challenge Activity #4), I started thinking about how I identify myself on the web. Sometimes, my avatar is a stack of books. Other times, I use the shield of my school. And then there are the times when I use a picture of all the cute guys from "The Outsiders" movie. Oh, and on Tweetdeck, I use an actual picture of myself (a terrible mistake that I addressed in an earlier post). That error in judgement aside, I can say that I generally identify myself as a book lover, a proud member of The Columbus Academy community (even more proud if we have a snow day tomorrow), and someone who has been kind of obsessed with The Outsiders for about 20 years.
Now, I'm not going to say that those three things tell you everything about me, not even close. I am also a great mom, a fabulous wife, a cancer survivor, an art aficionado, a writer, and a teacher. But those three things- books, the CA shield, and The Outsiders, are a good place to start if you're trying to understand me. My avatars are a metaphor for my identity. I am not just one thing, but an amalgamation of lots of things. Some days, I am that book lover, and I feel that being a librarian is the complete embodiment of who I am. Sometimes, I am my school. It is my home, a place of love and true joy for me. And then there are the times when I am just a nostalgic 80s girl. One who still, yes, still has a chance to nab Rob Lowe.
So, pay no attention to the picture at top left. That's not my avatar. That's not how I would ever identify myself. Instead, I present myself to you as:
Wow, I sound like my 13 year-old.
Before I get into the activity, I want to say a big thanks to all the wonderful people who have left thoughtful and supportive comments on my blog. You're awesome, and I'm truly grateful for this community of which I have become a part.
So, the third activity for the Teachers Challenge involves doing a little blog cleaning. The activity says "spring cleaning" but considering the weather here in Ohio (35 degrees and raining; no sun for days...), I'm just going to call it a blog cleaning.
This is gonna be a short post. I hate the "About Me" page. I realize it's a necessary evil, but I really do hate it. It's just so...narcissistic! Even so, I am thankful for this activity because my "About Me" page was in desperate need of an overhaul. I refuse to put up a picture of myself. I use one as my avatar on Tweetdeck, and I can't believe I have my numerous followers (15 at last count!) look at a picture of me every time I post something. I have to change that. I have been reading other people's posts, and they are much more interesting than what I'm writing here. Why are you even reading this? Read theirs!
And as far as adding another page, I will do that real soon. I'm going to add a page about my conference presentations, etc. But I'm not doing it right now. I'm both too busy and too lazy (You can be both at the same time, you know.). So the small updates I've made with have to suffice. My post will be all the way down at the bottom of the comments section for the activity, so I doubt anyone's going to read it anyway. If you are reading this right now, welcome! And good night!
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To the left is the header for Will Richardson's amazing blog, weblogg-ed. I've been reading it pretty regularly for about a year. Richardson writes about things I wish I could write about, forward-thinking, pedagogical musings and contemplations about the meaning of teaching and technology and where things should be going in education. I enjoy reading his blog because his ability to create what's next and not just follow what's next is amazing to me.
Here's a link to his latest post. What's so terrific about it? I find it, and so many of his posts, thoughtful, thought-provoking, readable, humorous, honest, and most of all, it teaches me something. I cannot read blog posts about what adorable thing someone's four year-old did that day or how scrapbooking has changed someone's life. I can't read something that wastes my time. Will Richardson doesn't waste my time. He engages me and sends me down a thinking path.
You may find it ridiculous, but I used to love Jeff Jensen's weekly posts about the TV show Lost. I was a major Lost fan, and every week I looked forward to Doc Jensen's recap of that week's episode. Why? Again, he made me think, and he taught me something every time I read one of his posts. He offered not just a "here's what happened this week" recap but a brilliant piece of discourse on the show's religious underpinings, its philosophical roots, and its symbolism.
So, what is a great blog post?
1. A post with the capacity to shake me from an existence of mindless consumption and get my brain jostling with activity.
2. A post that treats me like I'm smart, too, just like the post's author.
3. A post that leaves me a bit awestruck at the ability of the author to see what I cannot. I guess that's why I love TED talks, too. These people are visionary! Hey, I want to be visionary! When am I gonna be visionary? Is there a blog I can read that'll make me visionary?
Oh, and I also like blog posts with lists. Everyone loves a good list, right?
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It is my intention to participate in this month's Teacher Challenge, a professional development program of sorts, supported by Edublogs. The Challenge will offer a month's worth of activities to help bloggers increase their readership, improve their posts, and learn from other edubloggers all over the world. I have such a busy month ahead, I hope I can keep up. I'm certainly going to try.
I never knew when I got into teaching that the profession would involve so much self-reflection. Teachers like to think about how things are going and how things can be better in their classrooms and in their schools. When I was a first-year teacher more than twenty years ago, my school sent me to a new teachers retreat. I was working in New York City, and this conference was in a very small, very rural town called Rensselaer, New York, not too far from Albany. The conference center sat in the middle of nothing, in the middle of nowhere. Literally. The rooms were bare and poorly lit. No TVs, either. At night, I felt like Kyle McLaughlin in Twin Peaks. I fully expected to open my eyes at three in the morning to see a giant at the foot of my bed.
But by the end of my three days there, the sterility and starkness of the room made some sense to me. When not distracted by TV and telephone calls and mini bars, all I did for three days was reflect, reflect, reflect. I thought about why I had chosen to become a teacher and how I was interacting with my students and where I hoped my career would take me. Turns out, the conference was one of the best I've ever attended. I went back to Manhattan feeling profoundly tranquil and thankful to have had the time to turn so much over in my mind.
Today, the Teacher Challenge asks me to reflect on my life as a blogger. And I see this as kind of a privilege. What writing this post and writing this blog in general has made me realize is that I have the time and desire to do this self-reflection. Teaching is clearly a profession that requires self-reflection, and every time I write a post, I'm doing that, even if it's not a conscious act. I may appear to be writing a book review or a piece about a tech tool, but what I'm really doing is furthering my understanding of myself: How do I relate to others? What am I hoping to accomplish? What am I really saying here?
But I have not been consistent about posting, at least, not for several months. I suppose having cancer and needing major surgery last fall is a pretty good excuse. I'm healthy now, yet I still haven't returned to posting regularly. Often, I start a post and suddenly feel like I have nothing to say. Or I feel that I have nothing original to add to the conversation and I'm just going to be repeating what someone wiser (and with many more readers) has already said. I get discouraged sometimes, feeling like a very small pebble on a road that is very, very long. I'm hoping that this Challenge will help me overcome some of these doubts I have about my own capabilities.
Blogging has been good for me. I always wanted to be a writer, and now I am writing, if only occassionally. I think I'm building up to something, though. I realize that I have plenty to say when I
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The Middle School faculty gathered for a holiday party at a local restaurant. At one point, a gal from the restaurant came into our room and asked, "Does one of you own the black Mercedes parked out front?" The room went silent for half a second. Then we all laughed and laughed and laughed...
In the past month, I've helped both of my kids make PowerPoint presentations for school. I begged them to do Prezis, but they were happy to do PowerPoints. Which is fine. But if every kid in each of their classes did PowerPoints, that means that the poor teacher had to sit through Lord knows how many of the things over the week of presentations. Now, I don't have much sympathy for the teachers because they assigned the things and no one has ever taught the kids how to create a great PowerPoint presentation. (Actually, my son's was entertaining. He embedded a video from YouTube and ended the whole thing with a Blabberized Thomas Jefferson. But, both of those sites are blocked at his school, so neither worked on the day of the presentation. But that's neither here nor there...) My point is this: PowerPoint is dangerous. It can kill you. It can bore you to death. Below is a great Slideshare that addresses this very topic.
The slideshow was created by Alexei Kapterev. Thanks to EdGalaxy for posting this. Also check out Jesse Desjardins's You Suck At PowerPoint slideshow from the same post.
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We should be celebrating the printed word more loudly and more often nowadays. As educators we are all painfully aware of how the electronic word has infringed upon the territory of books, and some of us still hold out hope that the book will endure. Now that I'm a librarian, I see that plenty of kids still want to hold that bound volume in their hands and take in the fully sensual experience of reading in that form.
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I have officially taken over the role of Head Librarian for the middle school library! The Reinberger Middle School Library was established in 2004, pulling grades 5 and 6 from the lower school library and grades 7 and 8 from the upper school library. Since its inception, the middle school library has grown and flourished under the same head librarian, who was not me. So, taking over has been a bit daunting. I feel like I'm treading on pretty hallowed ground. I want to bring my own ideas and conceptions into the library, but I also want to honor the woman who came before me. It's a bit like walking a tightrope at the moment. I've rearranged some furniture with trepidation.
I have been charged with bringing the library into the 21st century. One of the reasons I was given this position was because of my commitment to learning and teaching about educational technology. Luckily, I don't have to do it all on my own. We have amazing tech people at our school.
One thing that I'm working on now is improving the library website. Right now, the entire "site" is on Moodle, which the students reach through the school intranet. The page consists of little more than links to local library catalogs and our library databases, a school calendar, links to resources for some classroom projects, and a decent picture of kids working in the library. It's not much. So, I've started to do a bit of research on great library websites and wikis and how to build one. Here's what I've gleaned so far:
In order to build a good website or wiki, you have to know your audience and your purpose. What do you want students (and faculty, hopefully)to get out of the site. Brainstorm a list of your top priorities. I love me my Stickies, so I used one for my list:
Now, time to look out on the web at some library sites that are both informative and attractive for students. Where do you find these? I've found listservs to be invaluable for this. People who post to listservs want to share; that's what listservs are for. So, post a request: What does your website/wiki look like? Send me links! You'll hear back from plenty of people if your listserv is well populated. Don't belong to a listserv? Google the term, and voila!
A few library sites that I like:
Naomi Bates's site for Northwest High School in Texas
S.C. Lee Jr. High School, also in Texas
Scarsdale Middle School Library, in New York
Westmont WIki, a wiki for Westmont School in Chicago.
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About a year ago, my husband and I became fed up with my cluttered nightstand. I do a lot of work in my bedroom, (I know, bad sleep hygiene) and my nightstand was practically sagging with the weight of all of the books, magazines, and doo-dads that I'd piled and placed on its surface. So, I bought a wonderful basket made specifically for such clutter and placed it near the nightstand. Then I cleansed. I cleared off the top of that nightstand completely and filled that basket with only the most worthy of items: back issues of Atomic Ranch and Dwell magazines, a Frommer's guide to European Cruising, and a thick file of clippings and photos of ideas for the dream house that we're hoping to build when we become empty nesters.
It felt good, clearing things out, cleaning things off, tossing the old and unnecessary. When I finished, I was left with a wide, empty surface, a tabula rasa, a plank of possibilities. All I needed was my lamp and my alarm clock. That's all I needed.
For about a week.
I couldn't help it. I need that framed photo of my husband and me with our dear (now dead) dogs, Daphne and Bessie, even though the frame is broken and the whole thing has to lie flat now. I need that Gustav Klimt paperweight that I bought at a museum in Vienna. I need that. And I need those back issues of Multimedia and Internet at Schools magazine that I pilfered from the school library (Don't worry, I'll give them back!). And I need my latest copy of Games magazine, which I take a whole month to finish, considering I can only work on it for the ten minutes before I fall asleep each night. I need that. And I need my nook! I need it there on my nightstand. And I need that awesome candle that one of my students gave me for Christmas that makes the room smell like a spa. And that's all I need. I don't need anything else. Oh, I need my glasses, those I need. And a box of tissues and a book about Twitter because I may start tweeting someday soon. But that's it. That's all I need.
My nightstand is back to looking exactly how it looked before I bought the basket. And the basket is now overflowing, too.
I'm not bothered by the sight of my cluttered nightstand anymore. It's still-life. It's metaphoric. You can learn a lot about a person by looking at her nightstand. What does yours say?
Did you ever see "The Jerk" with Steve Martin? Here's the scene that will pretty much sums up my experience: (I apologize for the half-green screen image. It was the only copy of the scene I could find.)
By: Kristi Holl,
on 2/10/2010
According to the National Science Foundation, the average person has about 12,000 thoughts per day, or 4.4 million thoughts per year.
I wager that writers are well above the average because we read more and writing causes us to think more than the average.
I had known for a long time that our thoughts affect our emotions, and that toxic “stinking thinking” could derail our writing dreams and health faster than almost anything. You are the only one who can decide whether to reject or accept a thought, which thoughts to dwell on, and which thoughts will become actions.
But sometimes–a lot of the time–I felt powerless to actually do anything about it on a consistent basis. Sometimes I simply felt unfocused and overwhelmed.
I’ve been reading a “scientific brain studies” book for non-science types like me called Who Switched Off My Brain? by Dr. Caroline Leaf Ph.D. which has fascinated me. With scientific studies to back it up, it shows that thoughts are measurable and actually occupy mental “real estate.” Thoughts are active; they grow and change, influencing every decision we make and physical reaction we have.
“Every time you have a thought, it is actively changing your brain and your body–for better or for worse.” The author talks about the “Dirty Dozen”–which can be as harmful as poison in our minds and our bodies.
Among this dozen deadly areas of toxic thinking are toxic emotions, toxic words, toxic seriousness, toxic health, and toxic schedules.
If you want to delve into the 350+ scientific references and pages of end notes in the back of the book, you can look up the studies. But basically it targets the twelve toxic areas of our lives that produce 80% of the physical, emotional and mental health issues today. And trust me. Those issues have a great deal to do with you achieving your goals and dreams.
According to Dr. Leaf, scientists no longer believe that the brain is hardwired from birth with a fixed destiny to wear out with age, a fate predetermined by our genes. Instead there is scientific proof now for what the Bible has always taught: you can renew your minds and heal. Your brain really can change!
Old brain patterns can be altered, and new patterns can be implemented. 
In the coming days, I’ll share some more about the author’s ”Brain Sweep” five-step strategy for detoxing your thoughts associated with the “dirty dozen.”
But right now I’m going to read about the symptoms of a toxic schedule. I have a suspicion…
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By: Cynthia Reeg,
on 3/21/2009
Another week of Lent has passed. We've had many chances to draw closer to Jesus. Have we taken the choices to do so? Or perhaps instead made choices which took us farther away?
By: Cynthia Reeg,
on 3/13/2009
We've almost finished the third week of Lent--half-way through. I made some intentions at the beginning of Lent. Some of them I'm doing better on than others. One of my intentions was to spend more time in prayer, but I'm not too sure I've been following through on that one as I should.
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By: Sara Lewis Holmes,
on 3/3/2008
